Originally Posted by BANFAN
It test cricket we need wicket takers, variety of bowling, rather than line and length.

Totally disagree. line and length is a prerequisite to be successful in Test cricket as a bowler because you need to play on the patience of the batsman to get your wickets. Line and length is especially important on unresponsive pitches.

Originally Posted by Jadukor
Totally disagree. line and length is a prerequisite to be successful in Test cricket as a bowler because you need to play on the patience of the batsman to get your wickets. Line and length is especially important on unresponsive pitches.

Agree. One of the best fast bowlers of all time, Glenn McGrath, used to go about his business by pitching on the same spot over and over and over again, much like a robot on auto-redo in a never-ending loop.

Nazmul may not be appropriate for Test yet. He doesn't have the pace and the accuracy of Glenn McGrath to trouble the batsmen. Most of the WI batsmen are power hitters and with such pace, he will be hit out of the park easily.

That being said, Nazmul is still better than Abul. At least Naz has some accuracy while Abul only has a pretty face and useless roar.

Line and length is not the only thing to get wickets. Mc Grath didn't depend only on line and length. You can get away with line and length and no pace as such not much variation as a pacer, in ODIs, but not in Test Matches.

That's why you see Shahdat even without good control gets wickets. If he would have better line and length along with pace, that would have made him much better, that's true. But if you have to chose between bits and pieces pacers to make a combination with our spin attack, I will always go for Shahadat instead of Nazmul in test cricket. Or even Abul/Rubel/Shafiul over Nazmul in test cricket. We have a lot of spinners to frustrate the opponents with line and length....

If Shahadat can take wickets and give breakthroughs as he generally does without line and length, what's the problem? Yes, he gives some extra runs at times due to lack of control, or due to poor wicket keeping, but that's better than such defensive bowling unit with 3/4 spinners and then again Nazmul...that makes us such a unidimensional attack...

Abul doesn't have wicket-taking deliveries. SRK may have a few, but everything that Abul bowls has "hit my career out of the park" written all over it. I don't think we can afford to have both in our XI. SRK, ok, but SRK and Abul, no. In fact Abul: no...with our without SRK.

Originally Posted by Jadukor
Seems like Pace is everything to our selectors. It doesn't matter if a bowler bowls half trackers, no balls, leg stump line etc etc... as long as he has pace all is forgiven including pathetic fielding.

It seems there is no value for line and length and the amount of control that Nazmul bring to the table. He might not be as good as Kulesekara or Vaas or Pollock or Mullaly but he is a similar sort of bowler who depends on control and swing rather than pace. He is a bowler who can get you 10-12 tight overs while the spinners look for wickets from the other end. He can also get you the odd wicket with the new ball. For Abul to get picked over him was shocking

This is harsh reality. Selectors think Line & Length < Pace. To give you an example; to get into the reps cricket team (in Sydney) the only thing the selectors are looking for is pace. Even if they see a person who isnt fast but is bowling good length balls, a fast bowler (who is bowling really bad) will be selected over him. And this is to get into a reps team. That is why Australia uncovers so many quick bowlers but no line and length bowlers.

The only genuine line and length bowler Australia had uncovered was McGrath. No other line and length pops into my head who was from Australia...

__________________
“The long I play, I will try to play good cricket. And if I succeed, that will be the biggest satisfaction.” - Imrul Kayes (April 2016)

Stuart Clark, Paul Reiffel, Nathan Bracken comes to mind
for the australians, and given their pitches which encourages pace bowling, the strategy of ignoring anyone without genuine pace works because they have plenty of quicks around to choose from.

Originally Posted by Jadukor
Stuart Clark, Paul Reiffel, Nathan Bracken comes to mind
for the australians, and given their pitches which encourages pace bowling, the strategy of ignoring anyone without genuine pace works because they have plenty of quicks around to choose from.

fair enough.

__________________
“The long I play, I will try to play good cricket. And if I succeed, that will be the biggest satisfaction.” - Imrul Kayes (April 2016)